
Ep 802: How LLMs Are Redefining Job Search
Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring?Show Notes
The way people look for work is changing fast. A growing number of job seekers now begin by using tools like ChatGPT, asking questions in plain language about roles, salaries, and what it's actually like to work for a company. It is a very different starting point from typing a job title into a search box and scrolling through pages of aggregator links.
At a time when employers are drowning in low-intent applications, something interesting is happening at the other end. Candidates who find roles through AI search arrive with real context about the company, the role, and why it fits their life.
So how can employers make the most of this new world of job search?
My guest this week is Ben Russell, Co-founder at SonicJobs. In our conversation, Ben explains how AI-driven job search is developing, what it means for candidate intent, and why he thinks this moment could rebuild trust between employers and job seekers.
In the interview, we discuss:
The role LLMs are now playing in the job search.
Changes in job seeker behaviour
Lessons from the rise of Google
Building apps in ChatGPT
Implicit and explicit discovery
The implications of conversational search
Delivering well-informed, high-intent applicants
How employers can own their own brand
What does the future of the job search look like?
Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts.
Follow this podcast on Spotify.
A full transcript will appear here shortly.
More from Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring?
If you've not listened to Round Up before, it's a short review of the episodes that I've published in the last month to make sure you don't miss out on the valuable insights that my guests are sharing.
AI is moving from a specialist technology to something employees in large parts of the organization are increasingly expected to be using. Skills, mindsets, and long-established habits are much harder to change than software, which is why meeting that expectation is proving difficult. If the challenge is mainly a human one, AI readiness is as much a matter for HR and talent leaders as for technology teams. So what does it take to get a workforce ready for AI, and what opportunity does that create for talent leaders?
Redundancies have become a constant feature of the talent market. AI is taking a lot of the blame, but the drivers behind this are much broader. Jobs and skills are changing faster than most organizations can keep track of and the conventional response is to restructure the workforce and then hire in the new skills that are needed. That approach relies on a ready supply of perfectly qualified candidates, and in a fast-moving skills market those candidates are increasingly hard to find. It also assumes that employers already have a clear view of the skills and potential within their existing workforce, which is rarely the case.
There is a lot of pressure on talent acquisition to adopt AI, and the discussion about how to do it tends to focus on tools and skills. With layoffs attributed to AI in the headlines, the people in TA teams have good reason to feel anxious about the technology they are being asked to use. That anxiety makes people less willing to experiment, and addressing it has less to do with the technology than with how leaders handle uncertainty.
TA leaders have to keep delivering for the business while they use AI to transform how hiring works. At RecFest USA in Nashville, AI was the main topic of conversation, although the people I spoke to talked about much more than the technology. So where should TA leaders be focusing their attention?